Divers consisting of community volunteers, tribal members, government employees and nonprofit members gathered Wednesday to coordinate their annual survey of 80 miles of the Salmon River comprising all of the area accessible to salmon.
courtesy of Glenn Kowalski

Only 389 spring-run salmon — which have been declining for nearly 90 years — were recorded on Wednesday, which is only half of the average run size over the last 20 years, according to Salmon River Restoration Council fisheries technician Beau Quinter.

“We are disappointed that there is not more protection for this big piece of the puzzle when it comes to Klamath salmon restoration,” he said in a statement.

However, Quinter did see a silver lining.

“In the meantime, the Klamath River spring Chinook run will spawn this year with a relatively good amount of water due to last years above average snow pack and the community in the mid-Klamath and Salmon River will continue working to preserve this imperiled salmon run.”

The Salmon River Restoration Council has conducted annual surveys of Chinook salmon and summer steelhead trout for the past 20 years. Close to a hundred divers — volunteers, government employees, tribes and nonprofit staff — survey 80 miles of the river in one day in order to get as accurate of a count as possible.

Spring-run Chinook salmon differ from their fall-run counterparts in that they enter the Klamath River in April through June, which allows them to take advantage of the snow-melt and swim further upriver. The Salmon River once harbored a thriving spring-run salmon population, but the construction of hydroelectric dams “wiped out” most of it since the early twentieth century, according to the council.